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AbstractThe new West Japan Twins and Higher Order Multiple Births Registry was established by recruiting young twins and multiple births and by referrals from public health centers in the 1990s. The participants included in the survey comprised over 7800 twins and 4241 higher order multiples, and their families. Specifically, the present registry contains one of the largest triplet samples in the world. For these twins and multiples, data on year of delivery, mode of delivery, gestational age, intrapartum complications, longitudinal physical measures, motor milestones, cerebral palsy and feeding methods were obtained from records in the Maternal and Child Health Handbooks and schools. Participating mothers were asked to indicate family structure, parental educational history, maternal sleeping time, maternal health condition, maternal and paternal age at multiple delivery, complications during pregnancy, handedness of multiples and age at menarche of multiples. However, the zygosity differed among the various collaborating public health centers according to factors such as the time of investigation. Follow-up questionnaires have been mailed out every 3–4 years for longitudinal studies. This article describes the goals of this registry, recruitment of multiples and the focus of the study. The goals of this registry are not only to conduct research on human genetics and maternal and child health, but also to contribute to providing appropriate information for families with multiples.

Herbert Hoover directed the three major food relief operations that were related to World War I and its aftermath: Belgian Relief during World War I, Eastern Europe in 1919 and Soviet Russia in 1921-22. This lecture centers on aspects of the least researched of these—the one directed at Eastern Europe (the area from Finland to Romania) in 1919 and examines the motivation, organization, financing and implementation of the relief, as well as the political and economic impact of the relief effort.

Reducing and eliminating health status disparities by providing access to appropriate health care is a goal of the nation's health care delivery system. This article reviews the literature that demonstrates a relationship between access to appropriate health care and reductions in health status disparities. Using comprehensive site-level data, patient surveys, and medical record reviews, the authors present an evaluation of the ability of health centers to provide such access. Access to a regular and usual source of care alone can mitigate health status disparities. The safety net health center network has reduced racial/ethnic, income, and insurance status disparities in access to primary care and important preventive screening procedures. In addition, the network has reduced low birth weight disparities for African American infants. Evidence suggests that health centers are successful in reducing and eliminating health access disparities by establishing themselves as their patients' usual and regular source of care. This relationship portends well for reducing and eliminating health status disparities.

This paper explores an anomaly in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights policy, laws allowing transsexual individuals to amend their birth certificates. Unlike most other LGBT rights policies, these statutes are often found in Southern and other conservative states. In fact, these laws are found in half of the Southern states. The array of states with these laws does not conform to the traditional pattern of morality politics laws that is commonly associated with LGBT rights. Using a Cox non-proportional hazards model, we find that the adoption of these laws was influenced by vertical diffusion of the Centers for Disease Control's model vital records recommendations. States with more professionalized bureaucracies, like Virginia and Georgia, were more likely to implement these recommended best practices. However, as transgender rights became more closely associated with the gay rights advocacy movement, this issue likely resembles morality policy. The result being that liberal and conservative elites respond to these policies in predictable manners. Notably, the political opportunity structure in Southern states has not allowed the passage of this type of statute since the incorporation of transgender rights into the LGBT social movement during the mid-1990s.

In 1940, at the second annual meeting of the Euthanasia Society of America (ESA), its first president, Charles Francis Potter (1885–1962), rose to give a speech. "Euthanasia, or merciful release from suffering," Potter declared, "is rapidly emerging from the stage when it was considered merely the obsession of a few left-wing social reformers to the period when it is being recognized as an important social measurein the same class with birth control and eugenics." Almost thirty years later, at another ESA gathering, clergyman Henry Pitney Van Dusen said much the same thing. "Popular attention centers on the Planned Parenthood movement at the other end of life," Van Dusen declared, and "[e]uthanasia is concerned with the responsible termination of life. The more we can relate these two movements practically the better, because they are both concerned with the responsible care of human life, one at its beginning and the other at its end."

"Provides ... information compiled by various government agencies including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and its National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)"--Page xvii

Background: Essential newborn care is a wide-ranging approach planned to improve the health of newborns through interventions before, during and after pregnancy, immediately after birth and during postnatal period. In Ethiopia about 120,000 newborns die every year in the first weeks of life which accounts for 42% of all deaths of under five mortality. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the magnitude and determinants of essential newborn care practices among mothers in selected health centers of Addis Ababa, city administration, Ethiopia. Methods: A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted in February to March, 2015. A total of 576 women in the first six weeks of post partum were included in the study. The collected data were entered into computer using Epi-Data version 3.5 and analyzed using SPSS version 21. Logistic regression was fitted to assess possible associations and the strength of association was measured using odds ratio with 95% CI. Result: The study revealed that the level of essential new born care practices was 38.8%. Education and advise about essential new born care practices during and after birth by skilled birth attendants (OR=2.17, 95%, CI=1.42,3.31),home visit by health extension worker (OR=1.55, 95%CI=1.03,2.32) and place of delivery at health centers (OR=7.69, 95% CI =1.32, 36.42), at private health facility(OR=9.18, 95% CI=1.32, 63.75) and government hospital (OR=6.68, 95% CI =1.32, 33.87) were found to have statistically significant association with essential new born care practices. Conclusion: This study indicated that level of essential newborn care practices were low even though the majority of respondents practice early initiation of breast feeding and safe cord care. Home visit by health extension workers, timing of postnatal care visit by skilled birth attendants, advice about essential newborn care practices during and after pregnancy and place of delivery were found to be independent predictors of essential newborn care practices in the study area

Introduction: France has the highest birth rate of the European Union. However, as childbirth could represent a potential risk, women tend to go more easily to hospitals, but this tendency is changing in some cases. In this context, France experiments since 2015 9 « birth centers ». Thosehouses welcome women with low risk pregnancies. In Lormont (Aquitania), the MAC « Maison Arc en Ciel » (« rainbow house ») is an example of this kind of structures. Objective: The main objective of my study is to analyze the characteristics of women choosing Lormont's maternity wards and those choosing the « MAC ». Method: A quantitative, cross-sectional, descriptive and comparative study has been conducted using an enquiry gived to all patients from those structures during the 3rd trimester of their pregnancy from June to December 2017. Results: In total, 109 women took part in the enquiry : 45 of them chose the MAC, the other 64 chose maternity wards. The patients who decided to give birth at the MAC were mostly primiparas, with a higher socio-demographic level, and "alternative" habits concerning their health before pregnancy (natural contraceptive method or condom, specific diets or medical follow-up less " classics ".), but with more frequent use of alcohol and cannabis. They had decided to be followed by a midwife, whom they consulted more frequently during follow-up. They expressed more their wish to be an actress of their birth, to breastfeed their child, not to vaccinate him, and to resume a professional activity after a longer leave than a regular maternity one. Conclusion: Populations differ according to the structures. A better knowledge of the characteristics of those patients is essential in order to give better and more appropriate health cares. ; Introduction : la France se classe en première position des pays de l'Union Européenne en terme de natalité. Cependant, l'accouchement représentant un événement potentiellement risqué, l'hôpital y est devenu le lieu de prédilection, ce qui est parfois remis en cause. Ainsi, depuis 2015, 9 « maisons de naissances » sont en expérimentation en France, pour accueillir les femmes présentant une grossesse jugée à bas risque. La structure s'en rapprochant le plus en Nouvelle-Aquitaine est la MAC (Maison Arc en Ciel) de Lormont. Objectif : l'objectif principal de mon étude est d'analyser les caractéristiques des femmes choisissant la maternité de Lormont et celles choisissant la MAC. Méthode : une étude quantitative, transversale, descriptive et comparative a été réalisée à l'aide d'un questionnaire distribué aux patientes consultant ces structures au cours de leur 3ème trimestre de grossesse entre juin et décembre 2017. Résultats : au total, 109 femmes y ont répondu : 45 suivies à la MAC et 64 à la maternité. Les patientes ayant décidé d'accoucher à la MAC étaient majoritairement des primipares avec un niveau socio-démographique plus élevé, et des habitudes « alternatives » concernant leur santé avant leur grossesse (méthode de contraception naturelle ou préservatif, mode alimentaire ou suivi médical moins « classiques ».), mais avec une consommation d'alcool et de cannabis plus fréquente. Elles avaient décidé d'être suivi par une sage-femme, qu'elles consultaient plus fréquemment au cours du suivi. Elles exprimaient d'avantage leur souhait d'être actrice de leur accouchement , d'allaiter leur enfant, de ne pas le vacciner, et de reprendre une activité professionnelle après un congé de plus longue durée qu'un simple congé maternité. Conclusion : les populations diffèrent en fonction de la structure. La meilleure connaissance des caractéristiques de nos patientes est primordial, afin de fournir des soins de qualité, et adaptés.

This is the final published version. It was first published by Wiley at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12369 ; BACKGROUND: Many low- and middle-income countries have high levels of violence. Research in high-income countries shows that risk factors in the perinatal period are significant precursors of conduct problems which can develop into violence. It is not known whether the same early influences are important in lower income settings with higher rates of violence. This study compared perinatal and sociodemographic risk factors between Brazil and Britain, and their role in explaining higher rates of conduct problems and violence in Brazil. METHODS: Prospective population-based birth cohort studies were conducted in Pelotas, Brazil (N = 3,618) and Avon, Britain (N = 4,103). Eleven perinatal and sociodemographic risk factors were measured in questionnaires completed by mothers during the perinatal period. Conduct problems were measured in questionnaires completed by mothers at age 11, and violence in self-report questionnaires completed by adolescents at age 18. RESULTS: Conduct problems were predicted by similar risk factors in Brazil and Britain. Female violence was predicted by several of the same risk factors in both countries. However, male violence in Brazil was associated with only one risk factor, and several risk factor associations were weaker in Brazil than in Britain for both females and males. Almost 20% of the higher risk for conduct problems in Brazil compared to Britain was explained by differential exposure to risk factors. The percentage of the cross-national difference in violence explained by early risk factors was 15% for females and 8% for males. CONCLUSIONS: A nontrivial proportion of cross-national differences in antisocial behaviour are related to perinatal and sociodemographic conditions at the start of life. However, risk factor associations are weaker in Brazil than in Britain, and influences in other developmental periods are probably of particular importance for understanding male youth violence in Brazil. ; The 1993 Pelotas Birth Cohort Study is currently supported by the Wellcome Trust through the programme entitled Major Awards for Latin America on Health Consequences of Population Change (Grant: 086974/Z/08/Z). The European Union, National Support Program for Centers of Excellence (PRONEX), the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq), and the Brazilian Ministry of Health supported previous phases of the study. The UK Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust (Grant: 092731) and the University of Bristol provide core support for ALSPAC. Additional support for the data collected at age 18 in this paper was provided by UK Medical Research Council (Grants G0800612 and G0802736).The research for this specific article was funded by the Wellcome Trust (Grant: 089963/Z/09/Z). The authors are extremely grateful to all the families who took part in this study, the midwives for their help in recruiting them, and the whole ALSPAC team, which includes interviewers, computer and laboratory technicians, clerical workers, research scientists, volunteers, managers, receptionists and nurses. Yulia Shenderovich helped prepare the tables. The authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.

An important national health goal is to reduce morbidity attributable to birth defects and developmental disabilities. Population-based surveillance has made notable contributions toward preventing these problems; it is also useful in monitoring changes in their incidence and in helping to identify reproductive hazards in the environment. The Metropolitan Atlanta Congenital Defects Program of the Centers for Disease Control is a model for such surveillance activities. Its register contains data on birth defects of all infants born in the five-county metropolitan area since 1976. Information on all major malformations discernible by physical examination is collected by the register staff. Mothers of babies with selected major malformations are interviewed at length. The register data base permits testing of new hypotheses concerning birth defects. It has speeded an extensive study of the possible effects of military service in Vietnam on the risk of having a baby with a birth defect. In addition, because of their special skills, program staff have made contributions to genetic services and to the development of national policy on maternal serum alpha fetoprotein.

We assessed preference for Church Based Maternity Centers (CBMCs) among women seeking delivery services in Akoko South West Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria. Using a descriptive cross-sectional study, 420 consenting women attending 11 identified CBMCs at Akoko South West Local Government (ASLG) were interviewed with a pretested interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was sectionalized into socio-demographic characteristics, perceived family support, pregnancy history and choice of delivery services. Data were analyzed and presented as frequency tables. The results shows that 52.8% of the respondents were age 30 years and above. More than one-third (46.6%) of the respondents gave birth at the CBMCs at last delivery and 35% preferred it for their next delivery. Main reasons for preferring the CBMCs for delivery among the respondents include, "for prayers" (68.8%), "is affordable" (31.8%) and "is close to domain" (28.4%). Problems reported by respondents to be associated with delivery services at CBMCs include, lack of health education (46%), poor handling of labour (26%) and late referral of complicated cases (22%). Preference for Church Based Maternity Centers for delivery was high among the women, with significant proportion of them reporting spiritual assistance as the main reason for preferring this service point. Hence, efforts directed towards sensitizing women of reproductive age on the importance of delivery at the hospitals and on dangers of using unskilled birth attendants during delivery are recommended.

In the past few years, call centers have been introduced with great success by many service-oriented companies such as banks and insurance companies. They become the main point of contact with the customer, and an integral part of the majority of corporations. The large-scale emergence of call centers has created a fertile source of management issues. In this thesis, we focus on various operations management issues of call centers. The objective of our work is to derive, both qualitative and quantitative, results for practical management. In the first part of the thesis, we investigate the impact of team-based organizations in call centers management. We develop queueing models that show that the benefits of the team based organization in providing more efficient answers to customers very often outweigh its drawback coming from the loss of pooling. Next, we consider a two-class call center and develop real-time scheduling policies that determine the rule of assignment of new arrivals to the waiting lines. We focus on service levels criteria related to the fraction of abandoning customers and the variance of queueing delays. Finally, we propose a call center model in which we provide information about delays to customers, and we quantify its effect upon performance. In the second part of the thesis, we tackled the quantitative analysis of stochastic processes and queueing models. First, we derive several closed-form expressions of the moments of first passage times in general birth-death processes, and we point out their applications. Second, we investigate some monotonicity results for the probability of being served in markovian queueing systems with impatient customers. ; Depuis quelques années, les centres d'appels enregistrent une forte croissance dans le monde. Les entreprises s'orientent de plus en plus vers ce choix qui leur offre une relation privilégiée avec leurs clients. Ainsi, ils disposent d'un moyen convivial et peu coûteux pour fidéliser leurs clients tout en essayant d'en acquérir de nouveaux. Le ...

"ACSI-CCCD"--Cover. ; Includes bibliographical references (p. 29-33). ; Mode of access: Internet.

We assessed preference for Church Based Maternity Centers (CBMCs) among women seeking delivery services in Akoko South West Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria. Using a descriptive cross-sectional study, 420 consenting women attending 11 identified CBMCs at Akoko South West Local Government (ASLG) were interviewed with a pretested interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was sectionalized into socio-demographic characteristics, perceived family support, pregnancy history and choice of delivery services. Data were analyzed and presented as frequency tables. The results shows that 52.8% of the respondents were age 30 years and above. More than one-third (46.6%) of the respondents gave birth at the CBMCs at last delivery and 35% preferred it for their next delivery. Main reasons for preferring the CBMCs for delivery among the respondents include, "for prayers" (68.8%), "is affordable" (31.8%) and "is close to domain" (28.4%). Problems reported by respondents to be associated with delivery services at CBMCs include, lack of health education (46%), poor handling of labour (26%) and late referral of complicated cases (22%). Preference for Church Based Maternity Centers for delivery was high among the women, with significant proportion of them reporting spiritual assistance as the main reason for preferring this service point. Hence, efforts directed towards sensitizing women of reproductive age on the importance of delivery at the hospitals and on dangers of using unskilled birth attendants during delivery are recommended.Read Complete Article at ijSciences: V5201602943 AND DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18483/ijSci.943

Background : Increasing access to family planning and reducing unintended pregnancies among human immune deficiency virus (HIV) clients has a number of economic benefits, including low costs for prevention of mother to child transmission (MTCT), lower costs for pediatric treatment and reduced costs for mitigating the consequences (such as low birth weights) of unintended births. For women with HIV who do not wish to become pregnant, family planning is proven, cost effective strategy for preventing vertical transmission of HIV. Yet there are limited studies conducted in health centers to assess contraceptive use and factors affecting its use among HIV positive women. Objective: To determine magnitude of contraceptive utilization and associated factors among HIV positive women that are enrolled for HIV care in government health centers in Addis Ababa. Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of 682 HIV positive women in the anti retroviral treatment (ART) follow up units of selected health centers in Addis Ababa. A systematic random sampling procedure was applied to select study participants. Data was collected through interview using structured questionnaires. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.Multiple logistic regression analysis was done to see the association between the outcome and predictor variables Result: The magnitude of contraceptive use among sexually active study participant were 88.27%. The most commonly used method was injectable followed by implant. HIV positive women who had a higher chance of contraceptive use were those who have two children (Adjusted odd ratio (AOR): 2. 8; 95% CI: 1.2-6.3),those who have more than one sexual partner (AOR: 12.0; 95% CI: 3. 3- 44.4)and those who disclose their status to their partner(AOR: 3. 4 95% CI: 1.52-7.55); Whereas women who were Protestant (AOR: 0.403; 95% CI: .191-.852),not currently married (separated /divorced/widowed) (AOR: 0.221 95% CI: .097-.501)were less likely to use contraceptive. Conclusion and Recommendation: The study has shown that about two-thirds of participating HIV positive women use at list one contraceptive method. The most preferable contraceptive methods used were Injectables and implants. Among the long-term contraceptive methods, intra uterine contraceptive device (IUCD) were used in very low rate. Religion, marital status, number of living children, number of sexual partner and disclosure of HIV status to sexual partners were found to be related with current contraceptive use among study population. We would like to recommend that the regional health bureau has to work hard to increase coverage of contraceptive utilization by HIV positive women in order to prevent mother-to- child-transmission of HIV by strengthen the existing family planning services integration with ART clinics and particular emphasis should be given on encouraging women to disclose their HIV status to partners.